Bulgarian Petrov has been highly impressed by Bellamy since he arrived in Glasgow just before the January transfer window closed, his goals earning comparisons to the impact Henrik Larsson made at the club.

Petrov said: “Bellamy adds something different to our game. Everyone knows what Henrik did at this club but Craig is different to him. He’s faster, sharper and more dangerous.

“I hope we can keep him but it’s up to the boss. We’ll see in the next month and a half what the decision will be. “If you want to do well in the Champions League you need players like that.”

While the clamour to retain Bellamy grows, Celtic midfielder Neil Lennon was reluctant to contemplate the prospect of the May 28 final against Dundee United as being his last in a Hoops jersey.

The Irishman’s contract is up in the summer and as yet no agreement on a new deal has been reached.

Lennon said: “It’s all ifs and buts at the moment. It’s still early in the talks but hopefully my agent will be up next week and we can get down to seeing where my future is going to be. I can’t say any more than that.”

Lennon claimed Hearts paid the price for getting carried away after their surprise 2-0 Bank of Scotland Premier League victory over the Hoops last week.

He said: “Of course there was more motivation after what was said by the Hearts players during the week. It was an incentive for us.

“People see us as a big scalp and that’s understandable, but they seemed to go into the game over-confident.

“I think we made it a bit hard for ourselves because at 2-0 up we were coasting. They scored a good goal to get them back into the game and they had a go but over the piece we were the better team.”